Doctor Who: Spearhead From Space

spearhead from space

Doctor Who
Spearhead From Space
Season 7, Story 51
Originally Aired: January 3-24, 1970

My answer to the question as to who is my favorite incarnation of The Doctor is usually answered by which Doctor I most recently watched. But if pressed Jon Pertwee is often my definitive answer (when it isn’t Tom Baker, or David Tennant, or Peter Capaldi…). But Pertwee is a great Doctor.

Spearhead From Space was his first story, it was also the first Doctor Who story to be shot in color and the first to be released on Blu-ray. I reviewed the disk when it first came out and you can read my thoughts here.

Foreign Film February: Nostalghia (1983)

nostalghia

Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky directed seven films in his all-too-short career. I’ve now seen all seven and everyone is brilliant, several are masterpieces (I still haven’t seen the Steamroller and the Violin the short film he made in school). His films are known for their beauty, spirituality, and long takes. Nostalghia has all that in spades. It also has a pretty confusing plot, but don’t let that bother you, for this is, as Martin Scorsese will tell you, cinema.

The story is about a Russian man who visits Italy in order to research an 18th Century Russian composer who also visited Italy and committed suicide upon his return to his homeland. That much I understood. The rest of it was pretty much lost on me. Reading the synopsis on Wikipedia just now I honestly had no idea that what they say happens in the plot actually occurred. Not that this mattered in any way, it certainly didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the film.

The film uses dream sequences and memories to create a fantastic tableau of images. Tarkovsky is famous for holding an image on the screen for a long time allowing us to truly digest everything we’re seeing on the screen. Here he uses subtle changes in lighting to shift our focus. There is one scene set in a bedroom. We see a man lying on a bed in the middle of the room, it is raining outside, and there is a bathroom in the corner. The camera holds the shot. Our focus shifts from the window to the bed. The man seems to disappear. Rain now seems to be puddling on the floor. A dog appears at the bathroom door. For several minutes we stare at this bedroom. Nothing happens, and yet we are mesmerized. Or at least I am.

Tarkovsky does this over and over. He is like a great painter and film is his canvas.

He uses rain, puddles, and water to great effect. Water drips from ceilings. Characters wander in cave-like structures filled with water. Reflections abound. The setting here often looks a great deal like The Zone in my favorite of Tarkovsky’s films, Stalker. It is very earthy. Organic.

I’ll need another viewing or two (or three) to get a real grasp on the story and what Tarvkosky is trying to say, but with this initial viewing, I was just mesmerized by the pictures he painted.

My Weekend in Movies

pat garrett and billy the kid

I watch a lot of movies over my weekends. I watch movies during the week, but with work and family, and other obligations, I don’t always get to watch one every night. But on the weekends, I squeeze in as many as I can.

I don’t really have the time or energy to write full reviews so I thought it would be fun to do a weekend wrap-up.

A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973)

After watching Hellraiser (2022) Friday night I had a little more time before sleep came crashing down so I threw on this little French horror flick from Jess Franco. It is surprisingly good, even if it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. A young woman comes home when she learns her father has died. There she finds an assortment of oddballs and freaks who either want to seduce her or kill her or both. I hope to have a real review of this for my Foreign Film February segment later this week.

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)

On my way to the convenience store Saturday morning for my usual 32 ounces of Dr. Pepper, I heard Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” playing on the radio. Realizing it was from the soundtrack to this Sam Peckinpah film and that I happened to own a copy of it on DVD, and that I had never seen it caused me to rush home and pop it in.

It’s terrific. There are actually a variety of cuts of this film out there, and I’m not entirely sure which one I saw. This is one of those revisionist westerns that were popular in the 1970s. Pat and Billy are old friends, but Pat Garrett (a wonderful James Coburn) can see how the county is changing and has decided to be on the right side of the law, whereas Billy (a fascinating Kris Kristofferson) can’t do anything but be an outlaw. Neither of them wants the inevitable confrontation to come, and the film prolongs it for as long as it can in the most interesting ways. Dylan not only did the wonderful soundtrack but he has a small part too. It is a lot of fun watching him on the screen.

Fist of Fury (1972)

The Criterion Collection put out an excellent little boxed set of Bruce Lee Blu-rays sometime ago and I bought a copy last year. But I’ve been putting off watching them for one reason or another. So I decided to watch this one this weekend. I was disappointed in it. The story is forgettable. A gang of Japanese dudes keeps harassing Bruce Lee’s club. Naturally, Bruce Lee has to kick their asses. The action sequences are mostly great, but there is a lot of dull padding to get through between each fight scene.

Cujo (1983)

When I was a young teen we didn’t have cable television. Or maybe we just didn’t have the pay channels like HBO and Cinemax. Whatever, my mom’s friend Beverly had everything and she was willing to tape anything I wanted on VHS and give it to me. Each week I scoured the TV Guide looking for interesting movies for her to tape for me. One time she taped Cufo for me. I only remember this because I let my friend Justin borrow the tape and he raved about the film. I can’t remember now if he never gave me the tape back or if I just never got around to watching it, but it went unseen by me until this weekend.

I actually bought a special edition DVD of the m movie last year based on that memory. I don’t know why I decided to put it in this weekend but I did and I’m glad for it.

Like a lot of Stephen King books this film takes its time getting started. It gives us a feel for its setting. It spends time with its characters, letting us get to know them. Unlike a lot of Stephen King books this film never makes me care for any of that. I just kept waiting for the rabid dog to trap the lady and her kid in that junky old Pinto. Once the dog does trap the lady the film gets pretty terrific, but it takes it a long time to get there.

Mr. Wong, Detective (1938)

Boris Karlof plays Mr. Wong, a Chinese detective that was clearly invented to cash in on the Charlie Chan craze at the time. There is absolutely no other reason for him to be Chinese in this film, which makes it doubly unfortunate from a modern perspective. The story is rather dull.

Dark Alibi (1946)

Another white guy playing a Chinese detective. This time it is Sidney Toler playing Charlie Chan, a role he would play more than 20 times to great success. This one is actually quite good. The mystery is standard stuff but Toler is fun as the brilliant detective who throws around a lot of silly bits of wisdom and constantly puts down his son and chauffeur.

A Study in Scarlet (1933)

I guess I couldn’t get enough detective movies this weekend. This is an extremely loose adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story. So loose in fact that it has nothing at all to do with the book other than the title. Apparently, the producers could only afford to secure the rights to the story’s title and the use of the characters, but not the actual story. Reginald Owen is so forgettable as Holmes I kept forgetting which actor was playing the character while watching. I only put it on because Anna May Wong is second-billed, but she appears in it for less than ten minutes. Completely and utterly forgettable.

Foreign Film February: Biutiful (2010)

biutiful

Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is a decent man living a bad life. He’s a low-level criminal living in a shabby apartment in Barcelona. He manages a group of street vendors who sell knock-off Gucci bags and other fake products. He’s also in charge of some Chinese illegals who make those goods. He’s exploiting humans for profit, but he also seems to care, at least a little. When he realizes the Chinese immigrants are cold, sleeping together in a rundown basement he procures them some heaters (the cheapest he can buy, a decision that will haunt him later in the film). He seems to love his young children deeply. He tries to be kind to his ex-wife who sometimes works as a prostitute, and is bipolar, but his tolerance has limits.

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu keeps things close to the streets. This isn’t your tourist brochure of Barcelona. The city is dirty, corrupt, full of violence, and a struggle just to survive. Uxbal is a decent man, and Bardem’s portrayal of him is sympathetic, but he also makes a living off the backs of the downtrodden. The film gives him cancer, and a short time to live which makes him even more sympathetic. The plot is really about him trying to put his life in order.

It is also mostly a bore. It drags on for over two hours and the movie never gives us enough reason to stick with it for that long. I’ve enjoyed some of Iñárritu’s films, but this one is a misfire. Barden gives a great performance, his face is so full of hurt and resignation, but otherwise, I found it a bit of a slog.

Foreign Film February: Scandal (1950)

scandal

Akira Kurosawa is one of my favorite film directors of all time. I’ve not seen all of his films, in fact, I’ve only seen about half of them (17 of 32 if you are counting) but out of all I’ve seen, there hasn’t been a bad one. All of them have been good, and many have been truly great. Scandal is my least favorite of the films that I’ve seen. It isn’t a bad film by any means, but when compared to his masterpieces it just doesn’t hold up.

Toshiro Mifune plays Ichirō Aoye an artist who, as the film begins is out in the countryside painting some mountains. A woman, Miyako Saijo (Shirley Yamaguchi), comes walking up the path carrying her luggage. She says she missed her bus and is staying at a nearby hotel. Ichirō says he is staying at the same hotel and he’ll give her a lift. They climb on his motorcycle and zoom away. Later that day, after they have both showered, he visits her in her room. They are both wearing robes and they hang their towels over her balcony rail. They have a friendly chat and at one point she draws close to him as he points out a nice walking trail she might take. It is at that moment a tabloid newspaper photographer snatches a picture.

The photo is sold to a tabloid rag which puts the photo on the front page and insinuates a secret romance between the two characters. Miyako is a famous singer and the story becomes quite a scandal. While Ichirō and Miyako discuss what to do they meet Hiruta (Takashi Shimura) a shambling, down-on-his-luck lawyer who says he’d like to represent them in a lawsuit against the magazine. Miyako declines but Ichirō is taken in by the man’s earnestness. When he meets Hiruta’s daughter, who is bedridden with TB but retains a cheerful attitude, he agrees to let Hiruta represent him.

Hirutu is a good man, but drowning in debt and is unable to afford good care for his daughter. When a lawyer for the magazine offers him a bribe to throw the case, he reluctantly agrees. The story unfolds in a way that aligns pretty directly with Kurosawa’s usual gentle humanism.

It is a decent story and it is told well. But compared to Kurosawa’s other works it falls short. There is nothing particularly surprising or interesting about how it unfolds, and the direction, while adequate, isn’t particularly special. I kept thinking about High and Low, Kurosawa’s fantastic crime drama from 1963. Much of that story takes place inside the house of the main character. It centers on one room. Kurusawa’s placement of the camera in that film, and the way it moves make that room feel claustrophobic or expansive depending on the mood he’s trying to create. It is a masterclass in direction. I kept hoping for something similar in Scandal, especially in the courtroom scenes, but the setups are all basic. The sort of placement you’d find in any courtroom drama airing on broadcast television. Again, it isn’t bad, it just doesn’t feel like a Kurosawa film.

In the end, it is still worth watching, especially if you are a fan, but this is definitely a lesser Kurosawa.

Links of the Day: February 11, 2023

Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy will be publishing a book about his 50 favorite songs: Lithub

Martin Scorsese is Due for Another Classic: Movieweb

Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros Continue Tenure at The Capitol Theatre with “Greatest Story Ever Told”: Jambands

The 10 Best Bob Dylan Outtakes: Paste

Bob Dylan musical set in Duluth to become movie starring Olivia Colman, Woody Harrelson, Chloe Bailey: Marin Independend

Van Morrison Adds 2023 Tour Dates: Ticket Presale Code & On-Sale Info: Zumic